GOP EXCLUSIVE!!!

The airwaves are full of the obedient and the credulous this morning trying to tar the Democrats with Jack Abramoff’s filthy lucre, so let’s set the record straight for those too busy sucking down hairspray fumes to pay full attention. As Media Matters noted when the NYT’s Anne Kornblut pimped this crap on Hardball:

Appearing on the December 16 edition of MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews, Kornblut falsely claimed that Abramoff had given contributions to Democrats. Yet a Media Matters for America search of the Center for Responsive Politics database of campaign contributions did not find any contributions from Abramoff to Democrats or Democratic leadership political action committees.

Although Kornblut amended her statement to claim that Abramoff "had his clients donate to Democrats," her comment falsely suggests that Republicans and Democrats are equally enmeshed in the scandal surrounding Abramoff. In fact, while Democrats have received contributions from Abramoff’s lobbying groups and his clients, Kornblut’s statement ignores the difference between accepting contributions from groups linked to Abramoff, which is legal and proper, and taking contributions in exchange for official actions, which is illegal, and which is at the heart of the ongoing investigations.

Between 2001 and 2004, Abramoff gave more than $127,000 to Republican candidates and committees and nothing to Democrats, federal records show. (my emphasis)

Enough with the docile repetition of "well you know Democrats are implicated in this too." They’re not. The shameless perpetuation of GOP talking points in the guise of news by major media outlets is a embarrassment creeping coup.

Update:Think Progress has a great compendium of the players in the Abramoff scancal. Worth bookmarking.

Update II: Anybody else catch the Abramoff presser? I’m not liking this one at all. WTF is Alice Fisher doing at the head of all of this?

Jane Hamsher

Jane is the founder of Firedoglake.com. Her work has also appeared on the Huffington Post, Alternet and The American Prospect. She’s the author of the best selling book Killer Instinct and has produced such films Natural Born Killers and Permanent Midnight. She lives in Washington DC.Subscribe in a reader